Conservative Fox News television host, author, and radio host Glenn Beck has started a university.

Sort of.

According to an announcement on Beck’s Web site, “Beck University is a unique academic experience bringing together experts in the fields of religion, American history and economics.” In July, August and September, interested parties can participate in “captivating lectures and interactive online discussions” in which “experts will explore the concepts of Faith, Hope and Charity and show you how they influence America’s past, her present and most importantly her future.”

[T]he actual insignia [it’s on the car’s grill, but you can see it more clearly at the Hotsheet link above] of Beck University. (Note the buffalo, feather and Latin words.) To be clear, calling it a university is more than a stretch: It is actually simply an opportunity to watch online classes taught by three men, among them the controversial David Barton.

Barton is described on Beck’s site as “the founder and president of WallBuilders, a national pro-family organization that presents America’s forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on our moral, religious, and constitutional heritage.” He is an evangelical minister and GOP political activist who has pushed hard against the separation of church and state and been embraced by conservative Republican politicians.

He has been criticized repeatedly for bad scholarship. According to People for the American Way, then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter wrote in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy in 1995 that Barton’s arguments “range from the technical to the absurd” and “proceed from flawed and highly selective readings of both text and history.”

I guess you could call this “the Harvard of right-wing radio universities,” in the sense that, well, to my knowledge there aren’t any other right-wing radio universities. Unlike Harvard or Yale, where Beck was a half-term (sound familiar?) student in one theology course after his ex-friend Joe Lieberman pulled some strings, Beck U. is strictly a profit deal. Only by paying Glenn Beck Inc. to become an extreme insider ($9.95 a month, or $74.95) can you enroll on Beck’s pseudo-cyber-campus. How else do you think Beck expects to sell that $4.25 million manse and move into bigger digs?

But frankly, the curriculum is less interesting than…that shield! Remarkable! The Latin phrase at the top — “Tyrannis Sedito Obsequium Deo” — could be loosely translated, with an emphasis on the “loosely,” as “To tyrants, uprising — obedience to God.” Below that is a bust of George Washington (based on this one, as you can see) and a buffalo, which in some culture (including perhaps the “white culture” that Beck has spoken so eloquently of) is a symbol of knowledge.

Of course, when there’s a buffalo, you always have to clean up behind it. And that messy task, my friends. is what the rest of us will have to do after Beck’s bogus Christianist and gold-coin-crazed fictional rewrite of American history becomes ingrained in his legion of followers.

36 responses to “Glenn Beck University, Where Every Degree Is A BS Degree!”

David Barton? He’s one of the most dangerous historical revisionists out there. He fully supports the idea that the U.S. is a Christian nation, not a secular one, and has gotten the conservatives on the Texas Board of Education to go along with him. I shouldn’t be surprised that Blech is using him as an “expert.”

The proper term would be regressive education. When you matriculate, you should get a nice certificate on toilet paper explaining that you’ve surrendered all independent and critical thinking to these greed-heads and you’ve been thoroughly brainwashed.

i think the proper term is robbery. blechhh steals from the blechheads, and they’re too stupid to realize that he’s using them to enrich himself. if they didn’t have money, he wouldn’t pee on any of them if they were on fire.

At last, I can get those necessary credits in boobology to complete my NALPI degree and start my thesis on feminiods so I can get my FuD. But only if the course is taught by the head boob. I shall minor in small appliance repair. When you gaze at the official seal remember that Georges figure represents the Washingtons that go straight into his pocket. The buffalo is an attempt to placate racial equality, for people that shuffle. And the feather, of course, goes up your ass!

i’m afraid that you’ll have to wait until blechhh u opens its medical school to take boobology. that’s where you’ll learn how to interpret death panel verdicts and learn how to figure out how many chickens are needed for each procedure you provide. dr. little randy paul will teach you how to create your own professional medical board, so you won’t have to bother with the official ones.

once people give even more money to glenn blechhh, if they don’t learn that they might as well have just flushed it down the toilet, then they’re beyond hope of ever learning any lessons that will prove to be worth their while.

Larry Craig is the security guard and part-time men’s room attendant. David Vitter runs the on-campus day care and has his own diaper service. Mark Sanford has a Argentinian dance class and also teaches tap dancing around the issues while hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Newt Gingrich teaches you the Best 10 reasons for avoiding, in his words, any reason to know the burden of caregiving. Joe Barton teaches the importance of manners in politics, even if his closest colleaues disagree. And John Boner discusses the fine pointers of spray cans versus the ease of brush-on for full coverage and no bare spots!

At yet Beck is a best selling journalist, executioner of Obama Czar trolls, has an audience unrivaled in daytime ratings, and is obviously a threat to dimwitted ‘progressive’ well being – an honor bestowed only on the best of decency.

You rubes on the other hand, pen at a feckless blog of Obama sycophants, have a meaningless existence of group think and no success which to speak, and attempt to rewrite history with an irreligious nature.

Like the ugly ducklings in high school, braces, overweight and wimpy, bad mouthing the prom queen or the football star.

As for being best-selling … so? As you know, the market is no indicator of rightness or righteousness. After all, Hugh Hefner has sold a lot of stuff, too. It doesn’t make him a decent human being.

As for rewriting history … Tex, you’re simply wrong. You have to pick and choose facts to deny and ignore in order to make it fit your interpretation. There’s a reason that David Barton isn’t published by any credible source … it’s because they got tired of running retractions for his dishonest methods.

You have to look at news sources other than Glenn Beck to know that, though.

Of course, as we’ve established, Tex, you’ll follow anyone’s god who says what you want politically.

you have so much more patience than i do, wken. he’s commented here once before, and he hasn’t seemed to get any smarter since the last time. you can throw facts at someone like him all day long, but nothing will sink in. better to not allow yourself to get aggravated.

dcAp, we always wonder how people like batshit bachmann and sharron the obtuse angle are able to win elections. this moron is exhibit #1. they remain obstinately ignorant. they’re the type who will stick their fingers in their ears and scream lalalala if the truth might be lurking anywhere near them. they’re not only willfully ignorant, but they’re proud to be so.